Slain Archbishop Romero, Pope Paul VI Made Saints

THE HIGHEST HONOR

Updated Oct. 14, 2018 12:55PM ET / Published Oct. 14, 2018 12:42PM ET

Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Pope Francis on Sunday made Pope Paul VI and slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero saints, praising the two men as prophets in the 20th-century Catholic Church who fought for the poor. Tens of thousands of people gathered for Mass in St. Peter’s Square and watched as Francis canonized the two men. Thousands of Salvadorans had made the journey to Rome for the ceremony, while tens of thousands traveled to the San Salvador cathedral in El Salvador, where Romero’s remains are entombed. “I want my children to know Monsignor, our saint, that he was a great man who raised his voice to defend his pueblo, and for that they killed him,” Jose Martinez, who’d gathered outside the cathedral with his family, told the Associated Press. To honor the two new saints, the pontiff wore the blood-stained rope belt that Romero had been wearing when he was gunned down at the beginning of El Salvador’s civil war in 1980. He was famously killed while giving mass, and his killers have never faced justice for the murder. Pope Francis also used Paul’s staff, chalice, and pallium vestment to honor the former pontiff who he called a “prophet of a church turned outwards.”